Name of the street you're driving on

No one here can answer the question "why". You would need to direct "why" to Garmin.

my old C530 had that feature and I really liked it. IN unfamiliar territory it was great. Why don't they do it now...Garmin has lost its way; that's why my last 3 GPS device have been the TT 340, 540 and 1605.

I often wonder why we so often make such comments as "so and so has screwed up" of "x company is not listening to its customers" when we do not have all of the facts.

Now, I have no idea why Garmin made the change it did but there might be reasons that would cause us to give them some slack. Technology companies try to patent as much as they can and then sue other companies for patent infringement. Amazon's "one click checkout" patent battles come to mind. Apple wound up licensing this technique from Amazon.

Other threads slam Garmin for failure to include .mp3 players. However .mp3 is a patented encoding format for digital audio which uses a form of lossy data compression. My guess is that Garmin did not want to pay the licensing fees necessary to continue including that feature.

Just because a company does not have a feature that we liked or would like may be purely a business decision that we would agree with were we to have to make the decision.

This has been a discussion point here and on other sites for years now. I doubt it has anything to do with map data or revisions as the OP questions, but simply Garmin's choice as to how to display data in that information line on the map screen.

Personally, I vote for knowing the name of my next turn when in "destination mode" over what street I'm on which most of the time I really don't need to know. In unfamiliar territory, I'd be looking for the street shown on the map screen as my next turn rather than concerning myself with what street I'm driving on.

It wouldn't surprise me that out of 1000 people you'd find 500 that liked to know what street their on all the time and 500 that would favor knowing what the next turn is. How could Garmin ever get this right. Of course they could always provide an option so the user could decide what they wanted displayed in that area but that probably isn't going to happen on the Nuvi line any time soon.

Each company runs there own sandbox.and feel it is the best way for there customers.

I was having a similar discussion in another forum regarding entries in a book. The entries in question are ordered in a specific fashion and there were a pair of members who thought the items should have been in alphabetical order.

My response was a simple "you can't please everyone." No matter what Garmin does they're going to have users that are upset because those users' "sacred cow" features were slaughtered on the new unit. As was already pointed out, just look at the repeated discussions about the removal of the MP3 player capability in all units from 2008 onward. Everyone seems to think that Garmin dropped the ball on that one. However, as pointed out by jgermann in this thread and by myself in another thread on MP3, Garmin simply didn't wish to continue paying licensing fees to Fraunhofer for use of the MP3 codec. So they cut out the MP3 player.

Regarding the banner bar, when I had gotten my 1300 I thought I would miss seeing the name of the upcoming street in the banner bar when NOT navigating. After all my 200W does display that information in its banner bar.

About a month afterward I realized that I didn't miss the feature as much as I thought I might. The map itself displays the street names. I also discovered a nice little feature about the street names on the map when NOT navigating. The map will only display street names if the streets allow travel in both directions or are one way streets heading away from the road you are driving on. Otherwise no street name will be displayed.

One other feature of the banner bar that I don't miss as much as I might have is the red banner bar when approaching a proximity alert. For those who don't know about this feature, on the older units when approaching a proximity alert the green banner bar would change color to red and display the alert in the banner bar in place of the route information. The newer units display this information in a pop-up bubble while retaining the route information in the banner bar. I'm only speculating here, but there must have been an issue where someone was on a route and was driven off course because the route information was not on the screen when it needed to be. Garmin thus had to change the setup to eliminate the problem.

I truly do not believe it,that they eliminate MP3 player and also on some unit the bluetooth features, come on people even if the price would be a little higher people still will buy it, and the last that I hear on some new model ,the bluetooth does not even support the phone book.like the C550 does that I still use.

I Think when a company like Garmin as made so many millions in revenue , they just stop care what the consumer like, in other words "This is what will give you and This is what you would take "

And what large company doesn't think that way? They all offer a set of features and either it's what you want and you buy the product or it isn't what you want so you look elsewhere.

MP3 support may well have been eliminated because of licensing costs or other legal reasons. That's speculation on our part as I don't think Garmin has ever confirmed why it was dropped but in any event it's gone. If you want MP3 support on your GPS then you can buy another brand, if in fact anyone else offers this feature.

I really don't think that Garmin has ever eliminated a bluetooth feature. They offer specific models that support bluetooth and other models that don't. I know that I have 2 bluetooth enabled Nuvi's and 3 cellphones. The phone book is available on the Nuvi for some of the phones but not others. To me that shows that whether a feature appears on the Nuvi or not is more of an issue in how Garmin or the phone maker has implemented bluetooth than it is Garmin eliminating support of a feature.

Is there any reason, especially with the larger screened units, that both can't be displayed? Put the name of the next street at the top center (like it is now, next to Lane Assist). Put the street you are on at the bottom center.

Why not have an "advanced" settings page and let the user decide what should be displayed on the top banner?

I believe I read somewhere that Garmin was forced to change the way they listed the streets on their units because the technology was applied by one of the other companies and they took Garmin to court which caused Garmin to discontinue that feature;

Greedy corp fighting = no good/innovation for consumer!

According to someone on this forum there are still current models that show the name of the street you're approaching. All of my older street pilots show it. I asked one of Garmin's tech support people why Garmin kept dropping useful GPS features like the street Pilots had and her response was, Nuvis are dumbed down versions of the street Pilots because people thought the menus were too complicated. I couldn't believe she said that, the menus on my street pilots were simpler and much more straight forward then the 855 I have now. The only improvement my 855 has over my SPs is the screen.

The best thing for Garmin to do would be to give the end-user the choice in what the banner displays, but they choose not to. Garmin also chooses to NOT display when the battery is fully charged...the nuvi 3xx/6xx series can do it. The code is there in all of the newer and current units (under the hidden diagnostics pages) which clearly show that the battery has been fully charged. Garmin chooses to not display it. Every rechargeable device I've ever seen clearly displays when the battery is fully charged. Why the nuvi used to show it (nuvi 3xx/6xx) but no longer does is just plain silly.

at least on my three units...can't be that hard to figure out...Garmin used to have, period. Anyone heard of a lawsuit forcing Garmin to remove the "street you're on" capability, me either. Don't you think if that was the case someone among nearly 300,000 poi factory users would have heard of it?

Now, I see the logic of just knowing which street you're heading to rather than the street you're driving on.

On a different matter, my Nuvi 1490LMT has a 5" scree which is noticeably larger than a 4.3" screen, however when I chose More Details map option, I get information bars to the right that takes up so much real estate that my Nuvi looks like a 3.5" GPS. The direction bar is probably not necessary if a North arrow indicator is shown. The altitude bar is good if you're traveling in Colorado.

One more thing, what are all the small blue dots (or bars) on the screen? Are they there to indicate that I've driven that route before?

That sounds like you're talking about the trip log. The nuvi constantly records your trip log. This is a record of where the GPS has been. The very short (sometimes just a dot or two) logs are when the GPS has satellite lock for a moment or so, then loses it. You cannot disable the trip log but can hide it from displaying on the map (it can get very cluttered). The procedure for hiding the trip log on the 14xx series is:

1. Touch Tools
2. Touch Settings
3. Touch Map
4. Touch Show to display the trip log on the map or touch Hide to not display the trip log on the map
5. Touch OK or Save
6. Touch and hold the Back button to return to the main menu screen

See https://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId={69721d30-1983-11de-76c5-000000000000}

haven't given this much thought to this...I just don't think you can pack all that everyrone wants into a GPS. I don't want too many bells and whistles, and I don't wish to re-learn every time a get a new GPS. I know I'm getting sort of stubborn now that I'm getting older, but all I want out of these things is how to get somewhere. Sometimes I even use my 360 again, even though it's hard to believe!

I turn my head at the corner, and read the sign. It worked before GPS, and still does. Good old analog!

My NUVI40 still shows a battery icon on the main screen. I like it. When I power off after it has been plugged into a power source, it shows me if charging has been completed. It also allows me the opportunity of changing the power settings for the screen. Don't like that one.

Yes, I remember reading about that lawsuit. As I recall it was back in 2006 or 2007. Garmin had brought a series of copyright infringement suits against TomTom. TomTom retaliated with a countersuit regarding interface design on the PND devices and one of the design elements was showing the upcoming street name. When Garmin dropped that feature on its new models introduced in the 2008 time frame, there was speculation in some of the forums that it was because of the pending lawsuit. But I don't think that was ever confirmed by Garmin. In any case, TomTom lost that suit, so there is nothing to prevent Garmin from using that feature if they want to. If you do some Googling, I think you will find some references to these Garmin/Tomtom suits and counter suits.

My Nuvi 1490lMT, when charging, does not show a battery status bar. Only when I disconnect the connection between the Nuvi and the car battery will the battery status bar show.

For the good of the battery, should I always keep the Nuvi connected to my car's battery so the Nuvi is always being charged to 100% Or should I run the Nuvi disconnected until the Low Battery warning light pops up?

I've found the Garmin Nuvi batteries are not that reliable and don't last very long so what's the point - I just leave mine plugged in and connected every time I use the car. If they are left uncharged for a while, they seem to lose their charge anyway I've found. I assume they are NiMH batteries which shouldn't have a memory.

You need to be power-connected to get the "T" for traffic.

I mentioned this before with regards to a different subject but it also applies here.

In the newer units like my 2460 while in "In the Destination Mode" or on an active route, whatever you want to call it, if you tap the "vehicle" it will open another screen showing the name of the street you are on, down to the house number + Lat/Long and also the next intersection by name.

Note: If you are on a Hwy it will show the name of the next exit.

"TMK" said in part....

Ohhhh... Talk about a play on words. Garmin (who is a GPS manufacturing company) has lost its way.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

Do you mean to say that you do something without the aid of some sort of technology? Oh, the humanity!

I agree...Good old analog

I believe most of these flat batteries are Lithium ion or Lipo, not NiMH, but even if true, there is no memory effect as was the case for the old NiCads, so your conclusion remains valid.

That's how it works.

Keep it connected all the time.

Thank you all for your opinions and advice. Much obliged.

And I believe it will always give you a "north up" 2d map, no matter your primary driving/navigating mode.

Larry

Lots of different views & opinions here
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/20422

If this is not hijacking a thread I don’t know what it is, what does the battery has to do with street names? Or bashing Garmin or M3 players.

The OP posted a Thank You for your opinions and is probably as confused as he was when he started the thread.

*

I think if you check up a few post you'll find that it was the OP that sort of hijacked his own thread:

It seems like flaco has a different perception of things

But also with Flaco, a hijacking even done by the OP should be avoided so in the future when someone searches for "names of the street you're driving on" they get the answer they are looking for.

Instead of a battery of answers.

The subject line says it all . . . . and you don't have to be on an active route for it to work . . . . . RTFM

I can't quite figure out what the original question is, since I have no clue what "the street you're driving on by" means . . .

1. The street you're driving on? or
2. The street you're driving by?

Back in the old days of the Streetpilot III and even before then Garmin always showed the upcoming cross streets (2.) which, in my personal opinion was 'the' way to do things, since in theory I already knew what street I was driving 'on'.

Knowing what the upcoming street was, was a boon because when someone gives you directions in real time or in advance they tell you where to turn.

Starting with units after the Nuvi 7X0 series Garmin changed things and started showing only the street you are driving on (when not actively routing), but increased the labelling on the maps to show the names of the streets you were approaching - unfortunately it messed up the map display, the names simply overlaid any connecting streets, making the map semi-useless - and it didn't show every name of every street (someone who posted above may have finally explained why to me - because it wasn't a street I could turn on to perhaps). Also, you couldn't quite tell whether the street was the one you just passed or the one you were just approacing.

Of course if you were looking at the map for the name of a street that the unit wouldn't display THAT would be useless.

So I for one rallied hard and loudly here and directly to Garmin to get back my treasured 'upcoming streets in the banner box' feature and, IT US BACK.

My most recent unit is a 3790 and it shows upcoming streets again My Zumo 660 didn't initially show upcoming streets and, starting with a software revision last year at some point, upcoming street names are back.

There was a rumour about a lawsuit about this - but extensive searches have never turned up anything, and that, plus the fact that the feature is back implies that either there was no lawsuit, any lawsuit was resolved or simply that Garmin may have listened to it's customers.

However, also starting with the units that followed the Nuvi 7X0 series Garmin reduced the zoom factors at which it would display secondary streets.

On the 7X0 there were 5 level of selectable street detail, in subsequent units it is down to 3. The secondary streets used to be displayed to a zoom factor of 1.2 kilometres - that was almost perfect for those who drive or ride in rural areas (though MORE WOULD BE BETTER). I may pull out my old SP3 to check, but I think it went farther than that.

On more modern devices secondary streets are displayed until you zoom out to 500 meters, and after that they disappear. In urban centres that is fine, but out of town what that means is that if zoomed to 500 metres you can usually see farther down the road with your eyes and see what's coming than the navigator can display.

As to pulling the MP3 players with everything after the Zumo 660 and starting with all Nuvis since 2007, note that Asian 3790s still had/have them, I don't know about anything more recent.

FInally!